Security systems are generally known. Such systems typically include a number of sensors that detect intruders or other unauthorized persons within a secured area. One or more closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras may also be used to detect intruders or other signs of trouble.
The CCTV cameras may be coupled to a display monitored by a security guard. The guard may be local or the guard may monitor the cameras from a remote location.
The secured area may be limited to a relatively small area (e.g., a home) with relatively few occupants or cover a relatively large area (e.g., an airport) that has many occupants.
In the case of large areas, such as an airport, the number of cameras may be large (e.g., numbering in the hundreds). Where the number of cameras is large, a switching mechanism may be used to display an image from each camera to the guard before switching to another camera.
While existing security systems for large areas work well, they are difficult to supervise. This is necessarily the case because each security event detected with a security system is potentially different than any other event and, in most cases, is not related to any other event. Because of the difficulty of supervising security systems, a need exists for better methods of correlating events within such systems.